Itazura na Kiss

Itazura na Kiss is a 2008 anime romantic comedy consisting of twenty five (25) episodes with themes of love, relationships splashed with a bit of silliness.

The story is about a high school student named Aihara Kotoko, who is a resident F class student. She is in love with Irie Naoki, the brightest student in the school, and attempts to give him a letter that professes her love for him in the first episode. He blanks her immediately and she becomes the laughing stock of the entire school. As some unnatural luck would have it, her home is destroyed by a level 2 earthquake and she and her father are invited to live with her father’s best friend until they are able to get back on their feet. The best friend miraculously happens to be Irie’s father so Kotoko now finds herself living under the same roof of her crush much to Irie’s dismay as well as his younger brother, as he is forced to give up his room to Kotoko. From this point on, Kotoko tries to win Irie’s affection with the aid of Irie’s mother, who believes that Kotoko is perfect for her son.

As with usual shoujo manga, Kotoko’s unrequited love gets reciprocated after sometime and she and Irie end up together. Same story, different plot.

The character designs were pretty okay. What I like about shoujos though is the fact that the characters usually change their appearance from time to time so they are not wearing the same outfit or hairstyle in each episode.

On a musical note, it was pretty average but it was easygoing on the ears. Nothing very spectacular about the soundtrack in this anime. The music was cheesy to reflect the the silliness of the anime.

The characters were typical of shoujo manga in terms of personalities, the ditzy, brainless or clumsy girl who falls in love with the perfect, smart guy who ignores her at first but then falls in love with her. The characters grow up in the series so it’s sort of a bildungsroman but in this case, there isn’t any significant changes in the characters, save for Irie’s iciness towards Kotoko melting as the series progressed.

Nevertheless, this anime was pretty entertaining. The story was predictable but the plot was funny. I had many a laugh at Kotoko’s clumsiness. If you have spare time and not looking for any serious, thought provoking anime, this is the one for you.

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